Raw Thrills’ has revealed to us a brand new racing game that will be shown at ATEI next week that is tentatively called “H2Overdrive” (which is not based upon the PS2 game of the same name). In news that should be music to the ears of Hydro Thunder fans, Raw Thrills’ has brought together the original team that created Hydro Thunder to give us this new game, which will feature many of the things players loved about that game (such as the huge drops and many shortcuts) but add some new aspects to it as well (which they couldn’t say much about at this time).

The cabinet to be shown features a 42″ LCD HD screen, pulsing LED lights and the game itself looks “amazing”. We’ll have more on this when ATEI rolls around in a few days!

UPDATE: We just received the first screenshots of H2Overdrive from Raw Thrills’. Many thanks to them for sending us these pics. Now just imagine the game running at 60 fps on a 42″ screen and we have a good idea of what it will look like in person ;)

UPDATE #2: I asked Andrew Eloff at Raw Thrills’ about the throttle control on H2Overdrive and he has confirmed that the new game does indeed use the Hydro Throttle like what was used in the original game but it has been “upgraded to be more reliable PLUS with cool new features!”. He also tells us that “The whole cabinet is a radical departure from the original Hydro…This cabinet is brand new from the ground up.”

UPDATE #3 (6/4/09) – I have done an interview with Steve Ranck of Specular Interactive where we discuss the game along with a ton of new details on what will make this game stand out not only from Hydro Thunder but from other arcade titles as well. Check it out here.

The information is starting to come out of IAAPA and first are the anticipated Guitar Hero and American Idol arcade games, we have been discussing for a little while now. This info comes to us via bemanistyle.com, which is allowing us to run with the info (thanks!)

First off, Guitar Hero. As was ‘rumored’ the cabinet has a 32″ monitor, a lot of LED lights and several speakers. It also has buttons for each player, Guitar Hero 3 related side art. The guitar controllers are specially made for this version of the game and at present the game cannot use your home controllers (although Raw Thrills would like to do that – perhaps in the future?). The cabinet also has a foot rest in case you get tired and it will use the Coin-Up tournament system, not unlike what is found with Big Buck Hunter/Safari Online. Also there are stickers for Raw Thrills, Activision and Konami on the cabinet so everything that was rumored the other day is completely true. Awesome. BTW- The game IS a two player game, they just hadn’t set the guitar up in the picture.

Then there is American Idol which is pretty interesting (we revealed that American Idol was headed to arcades a little while ago). The game cabinet is more of a enclosed booth that will allow players to record their performance which can be put onto DVD or sent to them via e-mail. As it shows in the picture, the cabinet says “Star in a Music Video” and the cabinet has a touch screen on the outside. There aren’t any other details on this yet but expect more soon!

Here is a very interesting rumor to start off with some IAAPA coverage: Guitar Hero will be at IAAPA and there will be a twist in who is involved in the game. According to the source at bemanistyle.com, the game has been developed by Raw Thrills but it will be published by Konami. Konami of course makes Guitar Freaks so if they are in fact involved with the new GH Arcade, that will not just be a big surprise, it also makes me wonder if the gameplay will mimick any certain aspects of Guitar Freaks. Here’s a little more according to bemanistyles anonymous source:

our source has stated the cabinet is going to feature 8-10 speakers, more than 500 LED lights and a 32″ monitor. The cabinet is also reportedly slated to take advantage of Internet connections to provide online cash tournaments sometime starting in 2009.

The online thing would deal with none other than the Play Mechanix/Raw Thrills Coin-Up network and offering cash prizes could easily draw many GH fans to any arcade with an online enabled cabinet to play.

Just keep in mind that it’s still a rumor – I have contacted some sources about this to see if there is anything else to it but so far I have not heard anything back (which isn’t terribly surprising as it’s Sunday night) but we’ll keep you posted as soon as we find out more.

Tiny update: While I tried to get some confirmation on this, all I could find out is that Konami is going to be at the Betson booth, which is why they are not on the IAAPA map. Raw Thrills also shares the Betson booth so the union on Guitar Hero would be pretty easy to handle. That and our friend Editor in the comments below confirms it so now we just are waiting for the pics and video.

Another update: I have received confirmation that American Idol and Guitar Hero are there at IAAPA. That’s not much considering it’s starting tomorrow but at least it’s no rumor. We’ll have all the info we can get on it when it becomes available.

Sorry about the lack of updates the past few days – I’ve been busy, busy ,busy with the arcade and other things in life. It seems like when one machine breaks down they all decide to take a trip with it. I can just say at least most machines carry a 1 year warranty. Those that don’t deserve harsh criticism (90 days, are you flippin’ kidding me?) but that’s a fun subject for a later time.

Right now, BBH Online players have another tournament to look forward to, called Jerad’s Choice. Jerad Berg is the winner of the recent BBH World Championship and he has picked his own tourney to hold for November. Like usual, all you need to do is find a BBH Online machine and give it a ‘shot’ (har har) in the online tournament mode and you have a chance at winning $500, with additional payouts in smaller amounts going out to the other 99 placers. So your chance of winning something at the very least is quite good! Hit the post break for more information on the tourney from the press release. In the meantime, I know that we can expect to hear about Big Buck Safari Online tournaments shortly, so stay tuned.

Sorry about the lack of updates the past few days – I’ve been busy, busy ,busy with the arcade and other things in life. It seems like when one machine breaks down they all decide to take a trip with it. I can just say at least most machines carry a 1 year warranty. Those that don’t deserve harsh criticism (90 days, are you flippin’ kidding me?) but that’s a fun subject for a later time.

Right now, BBH Online players have another tournament to look forward to, called Jerad’s Choice. Jerad Berg is the winner of the recent BBH World Championship and he has picked his own tourney to hold for November. Like usual, all you need to do is find a BBH Online machine and give it a ‘shot’ (har har) in the online tournament mode and you have a chance at winning $500, with additional payouts in smaller amounts going out to the other 99 placers. So your chance of winning something at the very least is quite good! Hit the post break for more information on the tourney from the press release. In the meantime, I know that we can expect to hear about Big Buck Safari Online tournaments shortly, so stay tuned.

Well it looks like we can move American Idol from rumor to confirmed at this point – apparently the game is currently being location tested at the Enchanted Castle in Lombard, Illinois and it has been there for “many, many weeks now” from what we have been told. Unfortunately we have not received any pictures or video of it in action and how much longer it will be there is anyone’s guess but if you live nearby we would love to see some pictures of the game as well as some thoughts about it – I am quite curious to know how this one plays. I also wonder if it uses online connectivity or not so it can feature downloadable content for songs and other things.

Now we just need to find out if Guitar Hero Arcade is being tested somewhere so we can put that rumor to rest. ;)

The rumor mill is churning right now but we have another rumor to look at right now in regards to what you might see in the near future from Raw Thrills’. We posted the rumor about the Guitar Hero arcade the other day and when I contacted Raw Thrill’s about it they said: “We can neither confirm or deny any rumors in relation to Guitar Hero”.

Interestingly enough we have been contacted by a source wishing to remain anonymous where they suggest that another game that Raw Thrill’s is working on has something to do with American Idol and it’s a video game. This seems to suggest that it could be something along the lines of SingStar, Lips or the microphone role in Rock Band. American Idol is certainly a popular show and for arcades to have a handle on that could be pretty big. I wouldn’t be surprised that if true, this game could also get some pretty big marketing exposure in the next season of American Idol. I do trust this source, which is why I am giving this rumor some attention. I decided to contact Raw Thrill’s about this American Idol rumor prior to posting and they could not confirm nor deny it at this point just like Guitar Hero but it’s certainly interesting to think about. Music games have always had a strong presence in arcades thanks to bemani titles but for an American developer to throw down the gauntlet is unusual. We’ll keep you posted of course but it looks like we’ll have to wait and see about the truthfulness of these rumors. At least IAAPA is only about a month away so we’ll see how this holds up.